


somewhere a clock is ticking

by ZephyrEden



Series: even in the darkness, we'll still have each other [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Time - Freeform, coping methods, meditative practices, post xehanort saga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-12 15:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15343227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZephyrEden/pseuds/ZephyrEden
Summary: There are certain things Aqua left the Realm of Darkness with - trauma, depression, strength she worked for and power she didn't ask for. It's the loss of her perception of time that effects her the most, though.





	1. a feeling that there's something that i missed

It’s one of the rare days when instead of busying themselves with putting their world back together, they’re taking a break. It’s not unreasonable; they really do work tirelessly towards their goal, but they can’t be expected to do it nonstop without getting exhausted or burnt out.

And Aqua _is_ exhausted. She’s been exhausted now for twelve years; she doesn’t even remember what it feels like to be rested. So instead of sleeping in like Terra is doing now, she’s out on the summit under the clear blue skies training.

It’s meditative, in a way. The movements had been ingrained in her brain long ago. She cycles through the stances instinctually, swinging her keyblade in repetitive motions that hold a strength she cultivated in another realm. It wasn’t hard to do, not when there wasn’t any time to worry about wasting. She’s fairly certain these exercises were the only thing that kept her sane. They might be the only thing still keeping her sane.

Her mind grows fuzzy until it finally lets go, allowing itself to fall into blissful blankness. Her body moves on its own, twisting and arcing in ways that are so practiced by now that they’re second nature and elegant. There’s no sloppiness, no wasted movement – not when one wrong move could be the difference between walking forward and fading into darkness.

It feels good, moving her body like this. She feels the stretch and burn in her muscles, the gradual rise of her heart rate the longer she goes on. It’s the feeling of being alive, in a way. It’s the feeling of knowing her body is still her own. Even in the Light, it’s a feeling she clings to.

Even in the mellowed mindspace she’s sunken deep in to, there are some habits that are hard to break. Like always being on your guard.

She can feel the small hairs on her body raise as soon as she senses something nearby and, before she comes fully back into herself, she’s swinging the keyblade with the dedicated unyielding force of a strike meant to dispatch an enemy permanently.

“ _Whoa_!”

Her arm locks, the muscles and tendons tense and trembling as she brings the momentum to a dead halt. The keyblade is mere inches from colliding with Terra’s jaw and the move would have caught him by the neck and likely thrown him straight off the summit.

Terra himself is tensed in anticipation, fingers twitching and ready to summon his own keyblade though he knows he wouldn’t have been able to guard in time. “Aqua,” he says calmly, voice low and even despite his spiking heart rate.

Reality crashes into her like a swift kick to the ribs. Her fingers unclench and the keyblade dissipates into flickers of light. She stumbles back and it feels like her bones have been forcibly yanked from her body, her legs giving out and dropping her to the ground.

“Aqua!” Terra calls more seriously, worry straining his voice. He’s on the ground next to her in an instant, hands hovering over her as he looks for any sign of injury. “Are you okay?”

Aqua tries to answer, but she’s suddenly aware of how hard she’s breathing, of how much her lungs ache and burn with each breath. She settles for nodding and even that small movement takes an exhaustive amount of effort.

“How long have you been at this? Please tell me not since dawn,” he pleads though it seems more like he’s saying it to himself.

“I…” she starts, her eyes trailing up to the sky. It’s dark out. “What time is it?” she asks quietly. It’s a question she hates asking.

Terra presses his lips together, sighing through his nose. “Just after dusk.”

“Sorry,” she says emptily and Terra watches as her eyes glaze over. “Late for dinner again.”

He snorts, shaking his head. “I’m hardly worried about that right now. I’m worried about you. You’ve been out here since dawn, right?”

She nods once, a slight but unmistakable movement. It’s no secret that her perception of time has been exceptionally skewed since her time in the Realm of Darkness. But she’s been getting better, or at least she thought she was. She isn’t supposed to lose hours like this, let alone days.

Terra knows this is one of the hardest struggles for her, adapting to something as ever present as time after being devoid of it. He has an inkling of an idea, but he knows he’ll never truly be able to fathom it. “Can you walk?”

She already knows the answer, but she tries to push herself up anyways. She barely gets to her knees before she’s falling again, this time with Terra there to catch her.

“Okay, okay, easy now,” Terra says gently, trying to soothe her. She hates that he has to do it, hates that he has to do any of this at all. She’s supposed to be stronger than this. She’s supposed to be a Master. “I’m gonna pick you up, okay? We’re gonna go home.”

Her heart clenches at the tenderness in his tone. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that this is the same Terra that she knew before, the same Terra she’s known for as far back as her memories go. “Okay,” she breathes and wraps her tired arms around his neck when he scoops her up easily. “Thank you.”

“Always for you, Aqua,” he murmurs. He tilts his head down and presses a kiss to where her hairline traces her forehead and she feels a soft warmth bloom inside her chest and tangle around her ribs. Feeling like this, she knows she’s already home.


	2. every second dripping off my fingertips

“If everything goes smoothly, I should only be gone for a couple of days,” Terra says for the tenth time in the last hour as he fastens his pauldron to his shoulder. It always feel odd to put it back on now that he’s gotten used to the feeling of it not being there. “You’re sure you’re going to be okay?”

Aqua stares at Terra pointedly. “I spent over a decade alone in the Realm of Darkness,” she says bluntly. Her fingers twist into the sheets at the edge of the bed she’s sitting on at the memory. “I think I can handle a few days on my own.”

Terra would like to believe this directness that Aqua now possesses, but the tension lining her muscles doesn’t escape him.

She sighs and looks at him pleadingly. “Really, Terra, I’m fine, I promise,” she murmurs. She doesn’t like to an object of worry. Terra has enough burdens to bear already.

Terra closes his eyes and nods. “Okay. I believe you.” He tries his hardest to make that true. He leans down, his fingertips ghosting the line of her jaw before he presses his lips to hers. His fingers move up to curl in the hair behind her ear and he groans into the kiss when he feels her hand on the back of his neck. He _really_ wishes he didn’t have to leave.

It’s with a sense of regret that he pulls away, burning every detail of Aqua’s face right now into his memory. It’s a habit he’s gotten into whenever he leaves for missions, one he wishes didn’t come with the morbid thoughts that often accompany it. He straightens, clearing his throat and breaking the quiet atmosphere surrounding them. “I’ll be back soon.”

Aqua walks with him out to the forecourt, the stars starting to glimmer as the rays of sunlight descend below the horizon. “Safe travels,” she wishes him and he nods before hitting the pauldron and transforming his keyblade into a glider.

He disappears past the world border, a blip in the navy velvet of the night sky. She sighs and supposes that now is as good a time as any to go to sleep.

 

~

 

Aqua cracks her eyes open and she’s not surprised to the see light stretching across the floor in the same skewed pattern the lines on the window provide. She’s exhausted, to say the least. She knows from experience that being in an empty bed after getting used to the comfort a warm body is jarring, but she’s usually able to fall asleep after at least a few hours of tossing and turning.

No, her body was not so kind this time. She was restless until the early morning hours, heavy eyes finally slipping closed once she saw the sky lightening with the oncoming dawn.

She doesn’t bother looking at the clock. Pushing herself up on tired arms, she forces herself out of bed and goes about her morning routine despite the time difference. Everything feels normal enough if she doesn’t give herself time to think about it. She’s always up before Terra, anyways, so the only difference is the abundance of sunlight.

It’s only when she’s pouring a cup of coffee that she realizes she’s wrong. She made too much coffee. The mug in her hand isn’t her own.

She should’ve made tea. The only reason she started drinking coffee in the first place was because Terra loved it so much. She contemplates dumping it out, but the waste doesn’t sit right with her. It’s silent as she sips at the steaming liquid, sitting at a table that will remain empty for the next few days.

She hates this.

She finishes the coffee and washes the cup, leaving it to dry on the counter. She needs to distract herself. It only takes a moment for her to think of how.

She sets about cleaning the entire castle (except for the mirror room; she doesn’t enter that room under any circumstances), taking the golden opportunity for what it is. If Terra isn’t here, that means the dirt he has a habit of tracking about the place won’t be here either.

She loses herself to the mindless task, putting much more effort in than required. It feels less like cleaning and more like purging, a self-made ritual to remove any purities from her home. _Their_ home.

She cleans harder.

She’s exhausted by the time she’s done. She had saved the Great Hall for last, always hesitant to enter the room that held so many bitter memories. Wiping down the low pedestal the set of thrones reside on, she leans against the wall as soon as she’s finished. Her eyes meet the back of the middle throne and she reaches out without thinking, fingers grazing the smooth material.

She chuckles to herself derisively. “Of course there’s no keyhole to feel. It doesn’t work like that.” There’s a hint of something, morbid curiosity, in her that wonders what would happen if she just… summoned her keyblade. If she turned the keyhole. If she sat on the throne and lost herself to the all-consuming nature of oblivion.

She walks away with measured strides. The stained-glass window still lets light pour over the hall from a sun still high in its rotation around the world. She sighs. The day is too long to fill, at least when she’s alone. Maybe summoning her keyblade isn’t such a bad idea.

She makes her way up the mountain path to her favorite training spot. She loves when the weather is like this – blue skies, soft trails of clouds, a slight breeze, and the sun warm enough to settle a nice feeling into her skin but not enough to actually be hot. Days like this are common here, but she never gets tired of them.

She makes sure to prepare herself better this time. If she’s going to lose herself, then she’s going to make sure she can still get back to the castle on her own. There’s no one to carry her back this time.

“You survived for years without falling to such trivial weaknesses like weariness,” she mutters to herself, an edge to the words. She takes her time stretching and once she’s done she summons her keyblade, Master’s Defender all too familiar in her grip.

She’s aware of time moving around her. For a while, at least. She aware of the sun moving across the sky and shining light into her eyes as different angles as she moves through stances and forms, reciting spells in her head like a mantra.

It’s when the sun sets that she starts to lose herself.

The darkness is all too familiar, as well. It’s in a daze that her mind’s eye starts to see creatures in the shadows, bulbous forms with glowing yellow orbs stuck in their heads like eyes were an afterthought. They grow and grow until they tower over her, imaginary thorns warping the environment and false mirrors erupting from the ground to reflect a version of her that isn’t real. Not anymore, it isn’t.

She grits her teeth and closes her eyes, forcing each thrust and swing of her blade to be more powerful, forceful, deliberate. Even if these creatures were here, if they were surrounding her like an army, she knows they couldn’t defeat her. She’ll never fall, not to the likes of them. She cultivated this strength in the Realm of Darkness to make sure of that.

There’s a burn in her muscles, an ache in her jaw, but she pushes past it. She knows Terra hates when she does this, but Terra isn’t here. She needs this. Darkness, evil, enemies – they don’t respect limits. So she needs to not have them. She needs to be able to surpass them. If they won’t respect limits, neither will she.

She goes and goes and pushes and pushes until she can’t anymore. The keyblade slips through her fingers and disintegrates into light when it clatters to floor, her body following after it. On hands and knees, she grips the grass beneath her left hand in a fist. The fingers on her right hand are still curled in a loose grip. She forces the fingers open, using the ground for leverage to straighten and stretch them.

She growls through clenched teeth. She knows it would be easier to use cure magic on it right now. She could cast Curaja and immediately be one hundred percent. She’s done it before, used to carry on training for what she assumes were the equivalent to days, maybe weeks, at a time.

The pain is grounding, though. The pain lets her know that she’s still here, that she’s somewhere safe enough that she can be allowed to feel it. She hates the feeling of it, it’s agonizing, but it means she’s getting stronger. It’s a priority she’s not allowed to ignore anymore.

She’s not sure how long she stays like that. Time isn’t relevant right now. Eventually she pushes herself up, stretches herself out, and starts the walk down the mountain back to the castle. It’s still dark out and she thinks she’s finally tired herself out enough to sleep without much issue.

“Aqua?”

She looks up in confusion at the sound of her name. Terra is halfway out the main doors to the castle, looking like he’s leaving. “Terra?” she tilts her head. “What are you doing back already?”

Terra looks her up and down, concern increasingly growing on his face. “You’ve been training again,” he states, not bothering to question when he knows it’s true. He hurries over to her. It only takes a glance to know how much she’s overworked herself. “It’s the middle of the night, how long were you out there? Here, let me Cure you-“

Aqua presses two fingers over his lips, stopping him from talking. There’s a weariness coming over her that has nothing to do with physical exertion. “What are you doing back already?” she repeats, slower and more deliberate.

He drops his hands and sighs, taking a step back so her fingers slip from his mouth. “I’m done. It’s been two days. I told you it would only take a couple.”

She swallows hard and nods. “Ah.”

In one step he’s around her, arms clutching her tightly to his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“Terra,” she starts because she doesn’t want this. It’s not his fault. Neither of them have been able to give up their guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, lips pressed against her hair. “Let’s go to bed. You need rest.”

“Okay,” she says without arguing, not that she wants to anyways. She’s tired.

She isn’t surprised when they don’t move. His arms don’t loosen so hers wrap around his waist instead. She doesn’t know how long they stay there like that. Time isn’t relevant right now.


	3. a clock is ticking

Terra stares at the box in his hand wordlessly.

He’s up too early and Aqua is sleeping in later than usual. He’s glad for that, though; she definitely needs the rest. He wouldn’t be surprised if she stayed in bed all day. Actually, he’d prefer it. It’s not healthy to push the body to its limits for that long and then continue on like nothing happened.

Aqua’s specialty, he learned quickly, is continuing on like nothing happened.

And that’s why he’s still staring at this box.

He needs coffee. Lots of it. Which is another problem he’s having, because _Aqua_ makes the coffee because _she’s_ always the one awake first and _he_ doesn’t know how to work this crystalline contraption she bought to brew the stuff with. He ignores the headache forming behind his eyes and pretends it’s from caffeine withdrawal instead of the problem currently on his mind.

“Good morning,” comes a yawned greeting that manages to scare him halfway out of his skin. He looks up and for a moment forgets there’s problems to be dealt with at all. Because while Terra is a man with functioning eyes that’s lived with Aqua for most of his life, it isn’t lost on him that she’s always been pretty and graceful and elegant and all those other nice words that have flitted through his mind over the years. But there’s something different about how he sees her now, how right now in this moment while she’s still stumbling around half-asleep with bleary eyes and bedhead he thinks she might be the most beautiful person, the most beautiful _anything_ , he’s ever seen.

He’s in deep. He knows he is.

The look of adoration in his eyes isn’t lost on Aqua, not even when she’s struggling to retain coherency. She smiles softly and goes to him, leaning down to offer him the morning kiss he usually offers her. He takes it gladly. “Sorry I slept in,” she says quietly, just short of sheepish. She straightens, taking a step back to move over to the counter so she can make their morning coffee.

Terra hooks a strong arm around her waist and pulls her back and into his lap. “Coffee can wait,” he murmurs, his lips against the exposed skin between her shoulder blades.

Aqua gasps but relaxes in Terra’s hold, anchored to this moment by his presence. The touching isn’t something new, per se, but it’s something she still feels herself adjusting to; a physical reminder that she isn’t alone, that this isn’t just figment made from desperation or a dream. When Terra pulls away she leans back against his chest, nosing along his jawline before her lips follow. She can’t help the smile that forms against his skin when he shivers. She places a kiss on his cheek and sighs, nuzzling into the crook of his neck and staying there. “I missed you,” she admits, because she can let go of that much in the daylight. She always misses him when he leaves. For some reason losing him once has made that sentiment so much harder to voice. But she chooses to believe it when people say time heals all wounds and even if time isn’t on her side, even she can feel the words loosening behind her teeth with each passing day they’re together.

Terra returns the gesture with a series of kisses against her hair. It’s longer now, growing ever since they’ve been in the Realm of Light. “I missed you, too,” he mumbles, burying his nose in the soft blue stands.

The side of his thumb moves in small circles against her hip and she sighs, eyes fluttering shut until she catches a glimpse of his other hand still on the table. She tilts her head slightly, trying to get a better look. “What’s that?”

Terra’s fingers twitch around the box. “What’s what?” he responds lamely, wincing as soon as the words leave his mouth.

Aqua sits up, immediately missing the comforting warmth against her back, but twists around so she can give Terra a skeptical look. “The box that’s clearly in your other hand,” she answers bluntly, a smirk pulling the corner of her mouth up.

He wants to kiss that smirk away. So he does, butterflies erupting in his stomach when she laughs in response before kissing him back, her arms wrapping around his shoulders to keep him there. It’s not often that she’s this carefree; even before everything happened, it’s never been in her nature. He pulls back to find her gazing down at him and he feels his heart catch then speed up double time at the vulnerable softness he finds there, the look tender and fond in a way he’s only noticed recently, in a way he only glimpses when she’s looking at him. He swallows around the sudden lump in his throat and he doesn’t know how his heart isn’t beating straight out of his chest.

“It’s a gift,” he blurts out when he finds his voice again. He lifts the box from the table and holds it out between them. “For you.” She quirks her head to the side just slightly in a way he finds unnecessarily adorable.

She only pulls one arm away from where they’re perched on his shoulders, slender fingers lifting the lid off the box while Terra holds the bottom of it firm. She blinks once, twice. “It’s… a pocket watch,” she says slowly. “Not that that’s bad!” she adds quickly, not wanting to seem rude. She picks up the golden watch carefully, the delicate chain attached to it cold as it cascades against her skin. She turns it over in her hand, gasping when she sees the delicate feathers and intricate patterns etched into the back of it. “Oh, Terra… It’s beautiful.”

Flipping it back over, she notices the wrong time on the watch face. She removes her other arm from Terra’s shoulders, unnoticing of the tiny frown he makes at the loss of contact, and pulls the metallic crown up. She twists it in either direction, the corners of her lips pulling down when the clock hands refuse to follow, still ticking away in a steady rhythm on its own. “I think it might be broken,” she admits, an edge of disappointment to her voice.

Terra huffs out a laugh, gaining her attention, and shakes his head. “I got this watch while I was in Wonderland,” he explains, pleased when one of Aqua’s arms return to wrap around his shoulders, her side pressing against his chest. “It’s a very special watch and I learned a very special spell from Merlin for it.”

Aqua’s eyebrows raise at that. It’s not that Terra is bad at magic, but it’s no secret that it’s not his strongest skill either. Going all the way to Merlin just to learn a spell… It’s unusual behavior at best.

“It’s reversible,” he continues, the arm around her waist moving up so he can hold her right wrist steady, his other hand gently taking the pocket watch from her fingers. “So, if you don’t like it, it can easily go back to this form. And it should disappear whenever you don’t want it there, so…”

Aqua doesn’t say anything, watching as he presses the cool metal of the backplate against the inside of her wrist. She hears him begin to murmur but can’t make out the words. The watch gains a slight glow and in an instant the chain snaps up and wraps around her wrist. Her eyes grow wide and the skin the watch is touching tingles, the familiar buzz of magic enveloping the area. The watch sinks into her skin so easily it’s as if nothing is there and suddenly there isn’t, nothing but the warmth of Terra’s calloused palm against the sensitive skin on her wrist.

Terra continues murmuring words that he spent the last day memorizing, focused wholeheartedly on not making a mistake. There’s a satisfying crackle of magic that leaves his lips with the last word of the spell and he smiles to himself and nods. “That should do it,” he announces aloud, dropping his hands from her arm and wrapping both arms back around her waist.

Aqua is speechless. There’s a clock. In her skin. Ticking.

She studies the markings in amazement. The intricate design on the back of the watch now blossoms around clockface and hugs her wrist like a bracelet, the chain now a thin barely noticeable golden band right below the heel of her hand. It sits on her like she was born with it, like it’s meant to be there, the design like a piece of art that’s been inked into her skin. The clock hands continue moving at the same steady pace they were before.

“This watch is special,” Terra says, holding her tighter and leaning his cheek against her shoulder, matching her line of sight as they watch the clock tick. “No matter what world you’re in, what realm, any place you go – it will always keep the same pace.”

Her eyes widen and her head snaps to look at Terra.

He holds her gaze and laces his fingers with her own, feeling the nails on her other hand dig into his back for a moment as they fist into his shirt. “It’s not so much meant for telling time, as it is for keeping track of it.”

“Terra...”

He can’t hold eye contact anymore. “I understand,” he starts again, averting his eyes to the floor, “if this is too forward, if I’m overstepping my bounds. I know you don’t like talking about it or me bringing it up, but- I just-“

“Terra.”

He huffs in frustration, gritting his teeth as he shuts his eyes tightly. “I hate it, Aqua. I hate the haunted look you get in your eyes when you realize you aren’t in another realm anymore, I hate the way you lose yourself when you’re alone, I hate that you still let this torment you. I’m sorry if this is too much for you, I just-“

_“Terra.”_

He swallows the words weighing heavy on his tongue and finally looks back up to her, immediately stunned into silence. The flush on her face makes her already blue eyes more vibrant than the sea, both of them starting to fill with unshed tears. This is his fault, he’s making her cry. “Aqua-“

“I love you.”

There’s only one reason he’s certain that time didn’t just freeze in place and it’s the lines on Aqua’s wrist, still steadily ticking in place. Her fingers are clenching his hand tighter than before but he doesn’t mind. It’s the grip made strong by how long its been using a keyblade for, unmoving and confident in all that it holds.

She closes her eyes, her lids pushing the tears down her cheeks. She leans forward, bumping her forehead against his and smiling despite the slight quiver to her lips. “I love you, Terra,” she says again, just because she knows he’ll need to hear it more than once before he believes that he’s actually hearing it. “I love yo-“

“I love you, too,” he breathes back. He isn’t even sure if the words are real.

But her lips are real. He knows that for sure. Her lips are just as real as the tears he can taste on them, just as real as the hand in his own and the one threading into his hair, just as real as the buzz in his lips that he knows could be from her magic but feels like it’s so much more.

They lose themselves and when they lose themselves, they lose themselves together. Time and place are the least of their concerns right now. And when they come back to reality they’ll know exactly where they are and as time moves forward, they will too. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> [somewhere a clock is ticking//snow patrol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpeobhPMdGw)
> 
>  
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/deepseasalt_) | [tumblr](http://deepseasalt.tumblr.com) | [carrd](http://zephyreden.carrd.co)


End file.
